Edition Practices

Ernst Jünger's Letter Archive

Ernst Jünger's Letter Archive

Detlev Schöttker

Ernst Jünger (1895–1998) assembled a letter archive containing 130,000 documents, which he systematically organized and kept at his home in Wilflingen. Today it is part of his literary estate held at the German Literature Archive in Marbach and includes approximately 90,000 letters to him (from around 5000 correspondents) and some 40,000 letters by him preserved as transcriptions or copies. The letters are significant both to Jünger’s opus in terms of his literary production and its reception but also more broadly in terms of 20th-century literary and political history. They constitute a documentary basis for his autobiographical writings and diary chronicles, in which he often refers to his correspondence. Beyond their value in relation to Jünger’s work as an author, they are also important as historical sources given Jünger’s role as a writer and political player with close contacts to a variety of different people over many decades.